Through The Looking Glass
by QueenAnne
Summary: She's leaving home after living alone for so many years. But he'll make sure she comes back to him.


Author's note: Uhm…hi. This is my first Once & Again fanfic, and I'm sure the characters are seriously skewed, and the story is un-edited, but what can I say? If you like it, do review…if you don't, constructive criticism is never honestly constructive and therefore not welcome. Sorry = ) Anyway…read on!--Annest  
  
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"When do you leave?" the boy asks, his countenance stone-cold and straight ahead. She sighed, her chin cradled in her hands, as her eyes lifted toward the sky.  
  
"I leave--I leave tomorrow morning. Bright and early," but her voice betrayed the cheerfulness of the words. Inwardly, they both flinched at the repression that permeated the stagnant air.  
  
"You'll write me, yes?" but there wasn't real hopefulness in there, only a sense of desperation.  
  
"If I can. Don't you think--well, don't you think it'll look suspicious? Not, well, okay, suspicious isn't the right word for it. But I can't write two separate letters."  
  
"No, you very well couldn't. But I--" and then the boy stopped, stopped speaking, stopped looking at her, and after a moment, she looked over at him, from her symetrical spot on the back stoop, with a fear in her eyes that he had quit her altogether, suddenly.  
  
"You?" she encouraged. He breathed out, a hard sigh in a moan, and let his head fall back.  
  
"I'm going to--I need to hear from you."  
  
"You know, you could call me," she said, rolling her eyes. "Or you could have gone with me. They wouldn't have to know." The suggestion was childish, hopeful, and he groaned again, because it was so hard to resist her honest hopefulness.  
  
"Because they wouldn't realize that both of us are in Paris. It wouldn't be obvious at all, babe." She shrank back at his small sneer. Doubling back, he realized what he had said. "That's not what I--I didn't mean to sound like that." When he spoke again, the vulnerability in his other-wise hardened attitude made her heart melt, which was the problem in the first place.  
  
"So what does this mean?" she probed.  
  
"It means you ought to write me, something. Of course, if you don't want to, I don't care one way or another," he said harshly to the girl, his words unknowingly cutting again. His fear of something was obvious.  
  
"Then I suppose I won't write you. That's OK. I understand. You know, I'll probably be much too busy anyway. I'm sure the rest of them want to hear from me, of course," she said, leaving the boy behind as she pushed herself up, off the porch steps and started to walk away.  
  
"I'd like it if I heard from you too," he said quietly, his voice drawing her back, magnetized.  
  
"Would….well, I'll write you then. Or call. Which would you like?"  
  
"The letters…and the calls…the letters would have to be sent without your name on them, without your handwriting being legible."  
  
"I don't like this, being secretive," the boy told her, turning back to look behind them.  
  
"Well I don't either. Don't be stupid about it. This can't work, because we're--"  
  
"Why can't it?" he growled, pulling her down onto the steps.  
  
"Because!" she shrank away. Her eyes were full of something she didn't want to express, his were full of something that they both were afraid of.  
  
"Your--my--she won't like it," the girl repeated, gaining her footing and moving away from him. A firm grasp on her hands kept her near enough that she could still feel his breath when he spoke.  
  
"I like--well, does it really matter what I like?" There was a long time before he spoke again. "It doesn't. You're going away.  
  
"Only for a little while," the girl insisted, pulling away from him, trying, but his hand around her waist kept her on the cold steps.  
  
"Too long. Why are you going anyway?" he asked, suddenly sounding anrgy. Her cheeks paled.  
  
"I'm going away because I can. Paris will be fun! It's immersion."  
  
"Yes, I've heard plenty about this stupid immersion theory, since it's the only thing talked about around the kitchen table lately."  
  
"It's not stupid, it makes a lot of sense. You know what your problem is? You're just jealous."  
  
"Jealous?!" he scoffed, rolling his eyes in the rebel-without-a-cause attitude he had perfected so well.  
  
"Yeah, jealous. I'm--well I'm going away and you're not. It's pretty obvious."  
  
"Nothing could be farther from the truth. I would never be jealous of you. Don't be stupid."  
  
"Stupid? Fine!" she yelled, glaring, the passion in her eyes finally coming through, and he reveled, as always, in getting her to grasp the vivacity he knew she had inside. "Then why are you so damned angry about this?"  
  
"Because, damnit…you can't."  
  
"That's the dumbest thing I've heard in my life. Like I said, don't be stupid. It's just me! Can you not be honest with me? Do you not care enough for me?" He saw the tears pooling in her eyes and wished for nothing more than for a large anvil to crash down from the sky on top of him, a la Bugs Bunny.  
  
"I can't. I'm angry because you're my goddamned sister, basically!" he erupted, and once again, he wanted to shoot himself at the look of shock that glazed her features.  
  
"Wha…but…what does that have to do with me leaving for a month?" she stammered softly, backing away from him, and he had to let her slip from his grasp for a moment, because he knew there was no way it could work if he didn't.  
  
"It has…it has nothing to do with anything," he said, shaking his head, dropping it into his hands as he groaned.  
  
Courage wasn't always her strong point, especially not when it came to him. But her eyes were bright with tears and anticipation, and her heart was beating quickly at the mere possibility of his actual thoughts. "Nothing to do with anything?" she breathed, and her voice hitched. He heard the pain and winced at his own bald-faced lie.  
  
"Nothing," he repeated, his words set firm and resolute.  
  
"Nothing," an echo from her, shock and humiliation.  
  
"Nothing, damnit, nothing." And then his lips were on hers, crushing down, and his hands were at the small of her back, pulling her toward him, and for a moment she resisted, worried someone might see her, worried someone might see them together, but the feel of his lips against hers and she was pliant. His tongue danced across her lips, begging entry, and she parted them on a gasp, wrapping her arms around his neck. He moved to her neck, raining kisses down and up the porcelin skin, up across her cheeks, her brow, her ears, and then back to her mouth, capturing it in one last poignant kiss, pouring out emotions he had never meant for anyone to find.  
  
"Eli," she let out on a sigh, burying her face into his neck for a moment to capture the feel of him.  
  
"I…Grace…"  
  
"But…I'm still going away. I can't just not," she said uncertainly, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. His hands were still shaking from the feeling of holding her in his arms for just a second.  
  
"I know," he said, gazing off into the distance as she slowly got up. Her hand was on the door to go back inside when he spoke again, and, as always, his voice stopped her instantly, pulling her back as if magnetized.  
  
"I'm still going to be gone," she said again, unnecessarily, and his eyes snapped to hers, flashing before they cooled, and he didn't try and restrain what he was sure she saw in them.  
  
"I just want to make sure you'll come back to…"  
  
"To you," she finished, since she knew how hard it was so speak his feelings in the first place.  
  
"To me," he echoed, flipping his gaze back to the sky.  
  
"Eli," she said softly, halfway in the door already, and he saw her hand stretch out toward him, drop back to her side before she spoke. "I'll always come back to you." 


End file.
